Imelda May is hot!

I think if ever I write an autobiography I will entitle it 'People I have had the Pleasure not to Know' as I have photographed many famous people from Royalty downwards, but seldom do I ever get the opportunity to talk to them, much less 'connect' with them. Last night I had the great pleasure of photographing that tremendous jazz singer Imelda May and not only did I get the opportunity to talk to her but we actually connected during a brief conversation. What a lovely lady who 'played' to my camera so I got some great shots with a personal input. Photographing on stage is always difficult because you are relying on available light, which is far darker than you would think, whilst using long lenses and struggling with apertures and shutter speeds. For the technical readers, I was shooting at around 1/50 at f2.8, and that was at 800iso! You can see the full Imelda May gallery at my web site very shortly.

Sarah & Alecs Wedding

Yesterday I was honoured to be photographing the wedding of Sarah and Alec in Southampton. I must admit that when I was woken early in the morning to torrential rain and high winds, I was more than a little worried but the weather was very kind to us as we met together at St. James Church in Southampton which is the church where I shot my first wedding at least 30 years ago. Both it and I are still going strong!

After a great service we all set off to the wonderful Winslowe House at West End on the outskirts of Southampton. It was my first time at this venue, but what a great inauguration it turned out to be. With uninterrupted views of the Hampshire countryside, and bluebell woods within a few yards of the front door, what better venue could you have and it was a very relaxed photo session for everyone. The wedding breakfast mixed both English and Armenian cultures celebrating the bride and grooms mixed heritage to perfection. A pretty perfect day all round!

Late nights and great music

I will be photographing at many of the concerts at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival next week so requests taken! As a jazz fan this is one of my favourite events of the year as much for the friendship of other photographers as for the music and the general pleasure of being in Cheltenham. Every year I get great shots, and these are posted on my web site. Whilst I am in the area I will hopefully be shooting the "Blossom Trail" through the Vale of Evesham orchards. All this adds up to a busy week,but with good weather it could be very productive. Can't wait to get started!

Don't get too hungry!

I have just added a gallery of various food photographs to my stock library, most of which have been taken in markets throughout Europe whilst I have been on my travels. You can view them here but I warn you, they may make you a bit peckish!

Freedom to Photograph

I am getting increasingly worried by the interference by the police when people are going about the perfectly legitimate act of taking photographs. This week we read in The Guardian that two Austrian tourists have been interrogated in London for taking photographs of a bus station because they may have been planning a terrorist attack. They were ordered to delete their perfectly legal photographs. These actions have a tremendous effect on tourism as the story echoes around the world (I first learned of it from the USA.) Whilst I accept they could have been terrorists have we totally forgotten the law of probability, and thrown common sense out of the window? Why am I getting heated? Because virtually every day I take images that could be used by a terrorist, and I them offer them for sale on various web sites around the world. The chance of a terrorist buying one of my photos is about 99 million to one, but it could happen and therefore the police could stop me at any time going about my legitimate business. Do we want to live in this type of society? Personally I don't!

I am in a sandwich!

With the declaration of the South Downs National Park this week, I am in the fortunate position of being neatly sandwiched between the two newest National Parks in Great Britain. The New Forest to the west and the South Downs to the east, and both within 30 minutes drive from me, will form the basis of much of my stock imaging this year and I have already set up two new galleries to feature images from these areas on my web site. These will be added to as the year progresses, and I hope to be able to especially feature lifestyle and crafts within the area.